Well the hull's now finished and tubes are on, so i'll be off to collect very soon. Attention must now be turned to kitting her out.

So quite simply, assuming I stick with Suzuki, do I go for a 200 weighing 263kg or for a 175 at 220kg. Will the extra 25 horses be lost by the extra weight? A 14% increase in power for a 19% increase in weight! And before you all shout and say get an Etec, it hasn't been ruled out.

The 19% additional weight is only the motor - what is the proportional weight increase for the entire rig? 43kg extra on a 1000kg-ish boat is only around 4% - Go for the 200
A 3.6 litre V6 will give bags more torque than a 2.9 litre in-line 4 and make the boat a much better all-round performer, which easily justifies the marginal extra cost to me.

I think that there is a danger of being "Power crazy". Considering that all outboards have a similar top rev range. If it's out and out speed that you're after, then yes you can run perhaps a higher pitched prop with more HP.But, when you have 6.5m Rib, running it's max HP engine and propped up, the slightest bit of sea and you won't be running it flat out unless you have balls of steel. On the other hand extra power is good when regularly carrying a boatfull of people, divers etc. How often do we run WOT? The fuel useage goes into orbit. Race prepped 6.5m Vipermax's ran 150's, which begs a question.